


Nothing

by Bellatrix_Wannabe_89



Series: #OQAngstFest [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, OQAngstFest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 06:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15657639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89/pseuds/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89
Summary: Robin was no longer the honorable man that they told about in storybooks. He was no longer that smug thief with a mischievous smile and a twinkle in his eye. He was nothing now, and how on earth was nothing supposed to go on? OQ Angstfest Prompts 10, 18 21 & 43





	Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Curious Archer on FF & Enixam1994 on AO3 for betaing. Love you!

_Robin's hands never shook. N_ _ot_ _once. It would have made for a poor archer if everytime he went to shoot a_ _n arrow,_ _his hands trembled. A need for a steady hand was why he rarely drank. Three small glasses of hard liquor or five mugs of ale. That was his limit. Any more than that and his vision would blur and his hand would start to shake._

_Now though? Not only was his hand trembling, it was quivering so bad he could barely grab onto the metal stud that stuck up on the topmost part of the clock tower. The icy cold wind whipped him in the face, stinging his ocean blue eyes, roaring in his ears as he leaned out as far as his reach would let him, glancing at the ground far, far be_ _low_ _._

_The thief closed his eyes as he leaned out even further. He was tired. So, so tired…_

 

Robin begged the God to use the Olympian Crystal on him instead of his Queen, to let her go, to punish him for breaking into the town hall instead of Regina.

Hades just smirked at the thief and told her with that smug arrogant tone as he aimed his weapon at the brunette, telling him 'ladies first'. Robin had started to race towards her. Regina had to live, she had to survive, he would not live in a world where she was not in it.

He felt himself being thrown across the room. Not from the Gods magic, not from the power of the crystal, but from Regina. She knew what he was going to do, she knew he was going to give his life for the woman he loves.

Loved.

Woman he loved.

And she would not allow him to give his life for hers.

He crashed against the wall, crumpling to the floor, but he was up again in an instant and by her side the next. Regina was standing there frozen, shock and pain etched onto her features as she turned to face him. She smiled at him and for a moment, one brief single moment, he thought everything was going to be okay. Something had gone wrong, the crystal hadn't worked, her soul was too resilient to fall victim to the Gods magic.

But then, as he watched his love's body crumple to the floor, leaving behind a beautiful dazzling ethereal version of Regina, he knew she was gone.

Tears streamed down his face as she used her last thoughts to comfort him with that elusive but satisfying smile and raised a hand to stroke his face… Before she faded away into nothing, just as Hades promised.

Regina was gone.

Robin couldn't move. Couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, could do nothing but fall to the floor and gather her in his arms, holding her tight against his chest.

His second chance, his soulmate, the woman he loved more than his own life. The woman who had worked so hard to have her happy ending… It had all been for nothing. Regina had died because of him.

The outlaw hardly remembered what happened after that. Hades was taunting him, telling him they wouldn't be apart long. That's when Zelena came in and saw what he had done, saw Regina lying in Robin's arms. Somehow the crystal was knocked out of Hades hands and ended up in Zelena's who used it to end him but by then, none of it mattered.

Regina was already gone.

She was never coming back.

Robin held Regina in his arms while Zelena sobbed into his shoulder and clutched at his jacket both for the loss of the God she loved and the loss of her sister.

He wanted to hate the red head. He wanted to run her through with the dagger he kept hidden at his waist, wanted to scream at her, wanted to blame her for Regina's death… But who's fault it was didn't matter. Nothing mattered right now apart from the fact that he would never see that fire in her beautiful brown eyes again. Would never see that rare infectious smile she reserved for him, would never hear her soft sweet voice as she only spoke to him with, still mared with sleep when she first woke up…

That was how Emma found them minutes later. It took the blonde reminding him they had to go and tell Henry what happened before he would let the EMTs put her in that black plastic bag and wheel her away...

The funeral was crowded. She would have been happily shocked at the number of people who showed up to bid her farewell but at the same time Robin couldn't help the rising anger directed at those dressed in black who stood outside her family mausoleum. They all feared her while she was alive. Even when she had changed, when she was willing to fight and die for everyone in this wretched town, they still didn't treat her as the hero Robin knew she was. Yet now all of them stood here on this dreary rainy day as if they had actually treated her decently during her far too short life here in this realm and the other.

The only ones who deserved to be there were Henry, Roland and Robin. Perhaps even Snow but the rest of them, Emma, Zelena and even his own men among them, could all take their false sympathies and guilt that they hadn't treated her as well as they should have in life and leave her family, her REAL family, alone.

The celebration, for lack of a better world, at Granny's following the funeral passed in a blur. He, Roland and his daughter sat in the booth he had sat in with his Queen. The little boy nuzzled against his father and Robin almost unconsciously stroked his soft brown curls over and over while, in the other arm, he cradled the baby girl in her fuzzy pink blanket.

He needed them. He needed both of them, more than the oxygen in his lungs, more than the blood in his body, more than anything else in this realm and any other.

Without them… he would have nothing. He would _BE_ nothing.

He didn't want to laugh at the stories told about her which more than often ended with them defeating her. He didn't want to celebrate a life cut too short. He didn't want to keep looking up to see Henry fighting SO hard to remain strong while people paraded by and told him how sorry they were that the woman who had cursed them was gone.

All he wanted was Regina back.

Half an hour into the 'party' Emma approached him. She said she had something delicate to talk to him and Henry about, something that would better be discussed in private.

Then the earthquake came and Hook reappeared.

Robin had never wanted to kill a man as much as he wanted to end the Pirates miserable life right then. Why did he get to live when Regina didn't? Why did someone who worked so hard for her happy ending, who had been willing to sacrifice herself for this town even when the people always gave the credit to Emma for it, have to die when Hook got to live?

It wasn't fair.

There was something happening with Gold and magic and the crystal, Robin didn't really follow nor did he really care, but Snow and David, Emma and Hook all raced out to be the town heroes once again.

Robin stayed in his booth.

What could well aimed sticks do against magic afterall?

The thief asked Little John if he would take Roland for the night, apologizing for turning his best and most trusted friend into a part time dad but John just clapped him on the shoulder and told him it was fine, to go do what he needed to do. He handed the baby to Zelena, kissing the infant on the forehead and telling her that he loved her before he left the crowded diner.

Robin spent the night in her mansion. He had drank through half of her collection of homemade spiked apple cider and fell asleep clutching her pillow that smelled of apples and spices - of her - to his chest while he sobbed over his lost love.

The next day he was awoken rather violently with John shaking him frantically, his voice having taken on a panicked quality.

"Whassgoingon?" Robin asked in a slurred mutter, his head still pounding from the drinks he had consumed last night. "Whasshappening?"

"She's taking her!" John yelled.

"Who?"

"Zelena!"

Robin rubbed his temple as he sat up in the luxurious goose down mattress. "Zelena's taking who? Or who's taking Zelena?"

His brain was still fighting to catch up to what his best friend was yelling at him.

"Zelena's taking the baby!"

"Where?"

"Back to Oz!"

The blue eyed man jumped out of the bed, yanking on his dress shirt and slacks from last night that were now a wrinkled mess from where he had just left on the floor beside the bed and he quickly pulled on his boots before he raced from the bedroom he used to share with his Queen.

"She's on Main Street!" John told him as Robin grabbed his bow and quiver on the way out. "She has the sorcerers wand, she's using it to make a portal!"

"Get Emma on the phone," Robin ordered him. "Now. Tell her we're probably gonna need magic to stop her."

"Emma's gone, she went after Henry early this morning! Some of the men have her cornered but she's already taken out one of them!"

Robin's run turned into a dead sprint.

His men were passed out, or at least he hoped they were passed out, in the middle of the street while Zelena stood in front of a large wooden antique looking door surrounding a blueish-silvery type film.

"Zelena, stop!" Robin warned the red head as he readied an arrow with John doing the same beside him. "You're not taking her!"

The witch turned towards Robin and the thief noticed she had tears in her pale green eyes, the same color eyes his daughter possessed.

"I have to leave," she told him, her accented voice trembling with tears. "I can't stay here without her, I have NOBODY here!"

He struggled to keep his emotions in check, to keep his voice as calm and collected as it usually was. "Regina would want me in our child's life, you know she would."

"Well she's not here anymore is she?" said Zelena, taking a step back towards the portal. "She's gone, and she isn't coming back. So I'm going back home to Oz. I might have been feared there but at least I won't be constantly reminded of my failures, of me trying to do good and redeem herself and losing my sister because of it."

Robin pulled the bow string back tighter. "You're not taking my daughter from me," he told her in no uncertain terms.

"MY daughter!"

"OUR daughter!"

Zelena shook her head, clutching the baby tighter to her chest, the infants head laying on her forearm and facing in rather than sitting up in the crook of the arm and looking out to the world where she preferred.

If Robins heart wasn't broken before, the loud cries the baby let out surely would have done the job.

"She-... She wants- She doesn't like being held like that, Zelena, she-... Please don't do this," he begged. "Just shut down the portal and we can go somewhere and talk about this."

Another shake of her head and another step towards the portal.

One foot was through the door.

"I can't stay here, Robin. I can't be here without my sister. She was the ONLY one who trusted me!" She let out a desperate sob and another half step through the portal. "Now because of me she's dead! I need to leave!"

Robin steeled his gaze and shifted his arrow from what would have been a graze to her shoulder, and now was instead pointed to her cold dark heart.

"If you take another step, I WILL kill you. Step away from the portal so we can talk about this."

Zelena looked at him for a long moment, neither ones eyes leaving the other. "You won't murder the mother of your child."

Without another moment wasted she jumped through the portal.

"NO!"

Robin leapt forward, desperate to follow her and retrieve his baby girl but just as his fingers grazed the fluid like covering it was gone and he fell to the hard asphalt.

His men awoke from whatever powers she used to put them to sleep to found their leader leaning up against the storefront, breathing heavily as he held back his sobs.

His daughter was gone. Robin didn't even get a chance to name her. His daughter was gone, the reason he had gone toe to toe with the Greek God that took Regina from him was gone…

He hadn't even gotten to name her.

No.

No, he couldn't let her go without a fight. Would not let her go without a fight.

He was going to get his daughter back from that witch, even if it meant killing the woman who carried her.

When Emma and the rest of them returned, he had begged Emma and Gold to use their magic to help him get to Oz so he could find his daughter. Gold told him he had bigger problems than helping Robin find 'his little brat'. Thankfully Emma promised she would do her best to find a way for him and his men to get to Oz.

Months passed. New strangers were in Storybrooke, men and women from the 'land of untold stories'. Robin barely spoke to them. He barely spoke to anyone apart from Emma and those who might have been able to help him, but every lead ended the same; with broken promises and failed attempts.

Robin was consumed with finding a portal. A magic bean, a pair of ruby slippers, a wand as powerful as the one Zelena had used to escape from Storybrooke... ANYTHING that would get him to Oz so he could get his daughter back.

While Robin hunted for a portal, his boy would play with the new children brought over from the Land of Untold Stories. Particularly one little girl three months younger than him with warm brown skin and a mess of black curls on her head. Her name was Moana, and her father had escaped to the land of untold stories because he had been too afraid of leading his people out to sea again.

Apparently Robins affection for brown eyes and dark hair had passed down to his son...

Robin had grown so obsessed over finding a way to his daughter that Robin didn't notice his son's sniffles.

He didn't notice the boy's cough or his runny nose.

When the fever hit and it hurt his throat to talk, when Little John told him how Roland spent the night crying out for Robin while his father had been busy pouring over some ancient book that might have a clue to get to Oz, that's when Robin realized he was sacrificing one child for a chance to be with the other.

He couldn't do that. He could not let Roland suffer because of his quest. His daughter had a mother looking out for her, Robin was all Roland had. He had already lost his mother, he could not let him lose his father as well.

That night as Robin wrapped the sick little boy in his arms and let him rest his weary head on his chest, he looked at the one photo he had of his daughter, which also happened to be the only photo he had of his family. His whole family.

Snow had taken it when Robin first brought his daughter home. She was wrapped in her fluffy pink blanket, a gift from the pixie haired princess, and Robin sat on the couch with Regina on one side of him and Roland on the other while Henry settled on the arm of the couch. Roland was grinning a toothy smile at the camera while Robin and Regina were gazing down at the newborn, their smiles full of warmth and love and tenderness as if they were telling her that no matter what the circumstances were surrounding her birth, they would still love her and protect her and care for her as if she had been conceived the same way Henry and Roland had. With genuine love.

Tears rolled down his eyes as he tucked the photo into his pocket.

Robin knew, as much as it pained him to admit it, that his dreams and this photo would be the only way he would ever see her. He knew he would never see his daughter again.

His attention shifted from trying to find the portal to caring for his son.

Robin brought him chicken soup from grannies, he bought this odd flavored pink medicine called 'Children's Tylenol', and the thief never once left his side. But despite his efforts, nothing seemed to quench his illness. He had Friar Tuck give him herbs and medicines from the woods they knew so well but nothing seemed to help at all.

"A bug," he remembered Regina telling him once when Henry had caught a similar illness. A 'flu' Robin believed it was called. Henry had gotten over it in the matter of a day

But Roland had been sick for nearly three days and nothing had helped him.

Then came the rash.

It looked like poison ivy on his face at first, thick red splotches all over his cheeks and forehead. Tuck had rubbed some salve on it to help it disappear but it had just spread to his arms and chest, and finally his lower body. Nothing the Merry Men's resident healer did seemed to help. None of the herbs he had with orked, not the pink tinged medicine Robin had gotten from the drugstore. Nothing.

One night the fever spiked dangerously to the point the little boy was soaked with sweat and trembling. He was so weak he could barely lift his head.

Robin had never quite trusted the modern healers in Storybrooke. The forest would provide anything Robin or his men might need to heal themselves. But this time, when he needed it most, the forest, Robins home, had failed him and it had failed his son.

So Robin wrapped the boy in his woolen cloak he had brought with him from the enchanted forest and raced to the healing center. A hospital, his Queen had called it.

He begged Doctor Whale to fix his boy, to cure him. The blonde doctor chastised Robin for waiting so long before coming to see him and for relying on the 'medieval methods' instead of the modern medical miracles that were available to him. But Robin didn't care about the lectures. He just needed Whale to fix his son.

It was an illness this realm called 'measles'. Someone from the land of untold stories had brought it over with them and the little girl Roland liked to play with, Moana, had caught it and given it to his boy.

Regina told Robin to get Roland vaccinated when they first became intimate but Robin had put it off. Not only did he have his mistrust of modern day medicine - he could never quite wrap his mind around how injecting someone with an illness was supposed to prevent it - but if Roland was ever truly sick, Regina would be there to cure him with her magic.

Robin stayed by his sons side. He did not leave him to eat or drink or sleep… He sat by his bedside and held his hand as he deteriorated further and further.

Pneumonia, Whale called it. The measles had caused the pneumonia and the pneumonia was making it much more difficult for Roland to heal. His lungs filled with fluid and his breathing had become harsh and labored. They put a tube in the boy's chest to drain the fluid and had put another tube down his throat so the machine could do his breathing for him.

One night Whale told him the news. The odds of the small boy surviving weren't good. His lungs were filling with fluid faster than they could drain it, the fever had spiked again… It would be a miracle if he made it through the night.

Roland wasn't granted a miracle that night.

The funeral was small. Not the grand affair that Regina's had been, his little boy was just the son of a thief, afterall, not a Queen.

Robin, the Merry Men, Henry, Emma, Hook and the Charmings… That was it. It was in the forest, away from the Merry Men's camp in a small clearing with flowers and trees all around him. Robin didn't want him surrounded by strangers and he hadn't felt right putting him in Regina's family mausoleum, even though Henry had offered it to him. They weren't family afterall. He and Regina had never married. Not to mention there was a chance Zelena might be put in there one day and he didn't want his son anywhere near that witch.

The coffin was so small, made of the finest pine Storybrooke forest had to offer. Robin made it by hand so some of the measurements had been a bit off but seeing as he was half blinded by tears the whole time he pieced it together, that was to be expected. Their family crest, a golden lion against a forest green shield, shone on top of the coffin as proudly as the tattoo his son had admired on his father's forearm

Roland was dressed not in a suit as was this realms tradition but in a handsome green leather doublet and warm woolen trousers along with his hooded cloak held together with his father's golden lion broach, the one thing Robin had held on from his life before he became a thief.

The same outfit he would have worn if Robin had stayed a lord instead of becoming an outlaw, the same outfit his boy would have worn if he had been known as what he was supposed to be known as; Roland of Locksley, heir to the Locksley lands and fortunes instead of Roland Hood, heir to nothing.

The blue eyed man said nothing to anyone as Friar Tuck delivered the eulogy. Said nothing as his friends each placed an arrow on the small coffin. Said nothing as he placed the stuffed monkey Regina had given him a lifetime ago on top of the casket.

He watched his son be lowered into the cold ground, didn't blink, didn't move, didn't do anything until John clapped him on the shoulder and told him it was time to leave.

There was no drinks at Granny's afterwards. No stories to tell, no fond memories to recollect. Robin just went back to the mansion he had shared with his love and drank until he fell asleep clutching his son's jacket to his chest.

The next few days all passed in a blur of a haze. Strangers would come up to him and tell him how sorry they were, his friends called to see how he was doing constantly, Snow kept bringing over food that remained untouched and, in the end, he asked her to just bring a bottle of whiskey instead.

A week had passed. Or two. Perhaps even a month, Robin wasn't sure. The days all seemed to blend together. He barely left his bed apart from when he needed more alcohol.

Thoughts and memories of his son, his Queen, the few moments he had with his daughter assaulted him every waking moment. He heard his sons laughter even while he blared the music of this world trying to drown it out, he would see Regina's smile whenever he closed his eyes, would dream of a beautiful nameless woman with pale green eyes and sandy blonde hair sinking arrow after arrow into a bullseye every night.

But the longer he forced himself to live in this meaningless existence, and the more he drank, the darker his memories of his family turned.

He no longer heard his sons laughter but instead heard him gasping for breath as he begged his Papa to make him feel better, saw Regina's body crumpling to the floor while her soul disappeared into nothing, dreamt of a frightened young girl being punished because she didn't want to be as wicked as her mother...

Robin couldn't escape it. He couldn't escape this apparent curse someone had put him under, couldn't escape seeing his family everywhere he went. He wanted to be with them. NEEDED to be with them.

Finally he had enough.

He hadn't meant to hear it. His ability to be soundless had been his downfall because Robin was sure the conversation would have shifted to something more pleasant if the fairies heard him approaching.

He learned that not only did children that young didn't survive portal jumps, not the kind that Zelena had taken his daughter through at least where you had to think about where you wanted to go, but that the fairies had kept that bit of knowledge from Robin to give him hope that his daughter, even if he couldn't see her, was alive and well.

With Emma it had been different. The tree was a direct pathway to a land without magic but the portal that Zelena had conjured required the traveler to think about where they wanted to go.

His four month old daughter was incapable of thinking of Oz as a destination so she had merely disappeared from existence. Zelena would have shown up in Oz empty handed.

His daughter was gone. Truly gone. She had been gone the moment Zelena took her from Storybrooke. He had spent all that time looking for a portal when he could have been looking after his son.

That was the last straw.

He wasn't sure how he ended up in the graveyard that night, kneeling in front of the Mills Mausoleum, drunk and trembling, an orchestra of his sons dying gasping breath, that soft 'whoosh' of Regina's soul as it disappeared, his daughters cries as Zelena stepped through the portal echoing loudly in his head. No matter how much he drank it refused to be drowned out.

"Regina," he breathed softly, tears he no longer bothered

to hide streaming down his face. "Regina, please… please come back to me."

He waited for an answer he knew would never come and the longer he kneeled in the damp grass, the more the silence was far too loud.

"I don't… Regina, what's the point anymore?"

Those words that he had said privately to himself at least a hundred times had never been uttered aloud before but now that he had, he realized just how true they were.

He had no one. His soulmate was gone, his son was gone, his daughter was gone… Even Marian, his first love had died. The outlaw had no one. He was truly all alone…

"I miss you. So much. I miss you, and Roland and my baby girl… I'm standing here alone now and I don't… I can't… it's so hard, M'lady."

As Robin said it, a sobering realization hit. It was hard. It was the hardest thing he had ever done. Surviving after Marian had been easy compared to this, but surviving now? Living now?

That wasn't just hard. It was impossible.

Robin suddenly realized why he had found his way to the graveyard.

"I came to say goodbye…"

Robin blinked once. Twice. He half expected a part of him to shout out that he was being ridiculous, for a fear or a sadness or SOMETHING to take hold of him and snap him out of it.

But there was nothing. Nothing except a still calmness that wrapped him in a warm blanket.

For the first time since Regina died, he knew that everything was going to be okay. Simply for the fact that he wasn't going to have to deal with ANYTHING for much longer.

Robin looked up at the Apple tree symbol engraved on the concrete for a long moment before he closed his eyes.

"You deserved so much better, Regina," he said out loud, meaning every word with his being. "You deserved your second chance at happiness, with me and Roland and Henry and my daughter… you were a hero. You were an incredible mother, an incredible friend, an incredible person… an incredible soulmate."

Robin slowly stood up from the ground and made his way over to the concrete structure, laying his hand on it as gentle as he used to touch her.

"I should have saved you. I should have saved all of you, but I couldn't, and I'm so sorry. I can't even save myself…"

He closed his eyes against a fresh wave of tears as he leaned his forehead against the cold hard stone.

"I love you," he whispered, the three words he had never actually said to her, before he kissed the stone and, bidding her goodbye one final time Robin made his way out of the cemetery.

Robin considered visiting his son. Telling him goodbye as well but he couldn't. He wouldn't let his boy see him in this state.

He called John. He told him what he overheard what the fairies had said to him, about his daughter having been killed the moment Zelena stepped through the portal. He ignored the subsequent apologies and the inquiries asking if he was alright and merely told his best friend that he was to give her the same gravestone that Roland had; a simple curved stone with his family crest engraved and he was to hand-make the coffin same as Robin had done for his boy and he was to fill it with the clothes and blankets that he had gotten the baby and he was to bury it next to his son.

The name on the tombstone was to read 'Regina Hood'.

When John asked what was going on, all Robin said was he wanted to be with his family and that he loved the man he looked at as a brother.

He wasn't sure if John heard the declaration of love overtop his yelling to not 'do anything stupid' but Robin had said his peace so he hung up the phone before he turned it off so he wouldn't be disturbed.

He walked to the center of town and gazed up at the clock tower, now stone cold sober. It was as if his life had prepared him for this moment, moving in the shadows so no one saw him make his way to the large structure and would think to stop him, climbing up the tall building as easily as he had climbed trees in his youth or castle walls when he was a thief entering a lavish home.

Robin's hands never shook. Not once. It would have made for a poor archer if everytime he went to shoot an arrow, his hands trembled. A need for a steady hand was why he rarely drank. Three small glasses of hard liquor or five mugs of ale. That was his limit. Any more than that and his vision would blur and his hand would start to shake.

Now though? Not only was his hand trembling, it was quivering so bad he could barely grab onto the metal stud that stuck up on the topmost part of the clock tower. The icy cold wind whipped him in the face, stinging his ocean blue eyes, roaring in his ears as he leaned out as far as his reach would let him, glancing at the ground far, far below.

The thief closed his eyes as he leaned out even further. He was tired. So, so tired…

Robin closed his eyes as the sights and sounds and his dreams all rushed together, each of them crystal clear even though they were all jumbled together.

Roland laughing, his daughter taking aim with her own bow, Regina smiling at him, his son begging him to make the pain stop, his Queens body crumpling to the floor, the new pain of knowing that his baby girl disappeared into some void because her mother had been selfish…

It was too much. It was all far too much. Robin just wanted it to stop, he just wanted silence, he wanted peace, he wanted to end the miserable pain that had constantly thrown at him…

The famous thief steadied his feet as he slowly stood up to his full height. He reached into his breast pocket and retrieved the photo of his family. He looked at his family; what would have been his future wife and stepson, Roland and his baby girl. He missed them. More than words could possibly begin to say.

He took a deep breath as he tucked the photo back in his pocket, right over his heart, right where they would always be.

"I love you," Robin whispered into the wind, the words meant for Regina and his children and then, with the first smile on his face in weeks, knowing that he was about to be with them, he jumped.


End file.
